Could Egypt be younger than suggested?
A younger Egypt Carbon dating :(Under construction) Archaeologist, Mark Lehner, from the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, explains that organic material is needed in order to do carbon-14 dating, "because all living creatures, every living thing takes in carbon-14 during its lifetime, and stops taking in carbon-14 when it dies. And then the carbon-14 starts breaking down at a regular rate." By calculating the rate of disintegration of carbon-14 atoms and counting the amount of carbon-14 in a sample, will determine how old something is. Pre-civilizations debunked There are spurious claims that other civilizations existed before dynastic Egypt—as early as 10,500 BCE. However, according to Director General of Giza, Zahi Hawass, there is no evidence in any place, neither in Giza, nor in all Egypt of any pre-civilization having existed earlier than 5,000 years ago. Egypt has been excavated for at least 200 years, and no single artifact, inscription, pottery, nor anything unique has been found.NOVA. How Old Are The Pyramids? Interview with Zahi Hawass, Director General of Giza Human design In his interview with NOVA, Mark Lehner described himself in the 1980s as "crawling around on the pyramids". He noticed that despite what the guides tell people, many pyramid stones, even the stones of the Great Pyramid of Khufu, are put together with great quantities of mortar. What's left of any existing pyramid is its core. A pyramid had two separate constructions: its outer shell of very fine polished limestone, done with great accuracy in its joints. However, most of the outer casing is missing, exposing the step-like structure of the core. Lehner goes on to explain that "the core was made with a substantial slop factor. That is, they didn't join the stones very accurately. You have great spaces between the stones. And you can actually see where... they may have like four or five, even six inches between two stones. And so they'd jam down pebbles and cobbles and some broken stones, and slop big quantities of gypsum mortar in there. I noticed that in the interstices between the stones and in this mortar was embedded organic material, like charcoal, probably from the fire that they used to heat the gypsum in order to make the mortar. You have to heat raw gypsum in order to dehydrate it, and then you rehydrate it in order to make the mortar, like with modern cement."NOVA. How Old Are The Pyramids? Interview with Mark Lehner, Archaeologist, Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, and Harvard Semitic Museum Lehner further notes that "the pyramids are very human monuments. And the evidence of the people who built them, their material culture is embedded right into the very fabric of the pyramids. And I think I could take just about any interested person and show them this kind of material embedded in the pyramids as well as tool marks in the stones and say, hey, folks, these weren't lasers. These were chisels and hammers and you know, people who were really out there." References * Nova Online Adventure: Pyramids * Egyptian chronology Category:Articles